Sky Sports Pundit – I Really Worry About Newcastle

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

8:41pm Monday, November 23rd, 2015

Commented 19 times

Sky Sport pundit Paul Merson predicted a 2-2 draw on Saturday between Newcastle and Leicester City, but he was way off the mark and Newcastle were humiliated with another defeat – this time 3-0 – and the win took Leicester City to the top of the Premier League for the first time ever.

At the beginning of April they were rock bottom of the league before starting their incredible final nine games when they put 22 points on the board and that good form and results has continued into this season right to the top of the league.

Absolutely incredible.

Almost the very opposite has happened to Newcastle in the same time period – and we were almost relegated last season with 4 points from the last 11 games and we are now in another relegation fight this term too.

🙁 🙁 🙁

Paul Merson – I worry about Newcastle – same here Newcastle were insipid on Saturday and half the team didn´t seem to care less what was happening in the second half, and that doesn’t say much for Steve McClaren´s motivation capabilities when he couldn´t even get them motivated to play in front of 50,000 home fans.

We look at Liverpool since Jurgen Klopp came in and the Liverpool players are playing like men possessed for their new manager – they are playing out of their skin for Klopp.

You cannot accuse any single Newcastle player of doing that for Steve McClaren.

At any other club Steve would be in danger – severe danger – of losing his job – but not at Newcastle – and if we are to believe the local papers he will be given ample time to get things right.

Paul Merson was appalled at the what he saw from Newcastle – just like the rest of us – and this is what he had to say:

“I worry about them, I really worry about them.” “I said to Matt Le Tissier before the game.” “I wrote the teams down and said: ‘What Newcastle player could get into the Leicester team?’ I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t see anybody. Now that is worrying.”

And it doesn´t help that Newcastle have just invested a massive £53M in the squad and Mike Ashley cannot have much confidence in the group who are handling the incoming transfers for the club – the Newcastle Board.

There seems little improvement if any – from the complete disaster of John Carver in charge in the second half of last season.

And both appointments were made by Managing Director Lee Charnley.

John averaged 0.68 points per game with 13 points from 19 league games and Steve is averaging 0.77 points from each game – with 10 points from 13 games.

Both records are relegation form and John would have achieved 26 points in a 38 game season and Steve 29.

Things surely have to improve dramatically and soon too – otherwise Mike Ashley may be forced to intervene – because it looks like those running the club are making another hash of it – just like they did in the second half of last season.

And to think we though that was all past and gone and over when we survived and summer rolled around – we looked forward to (much) better things.

Wrong.

Mike Ashley is not going to stand idly by and allow Newcastle to be relegated and lose out on all that Premier League money if things don´t improve soon – whatever the local papers say.

Palace under Pardew should actually be so much better they have lots of skillfull and pacy players but they dont really make any silky moves between them a bit like when Pardew was here they struggle to break down teams and then resort to Cabaye hitting long rangers ……

I think the most comparable teams of last season going into this one are us and West Ham, they also had a dismal second half of acseason playing under a manager who they knew wouldn’t be there this season. The only difference was that they were not in a relegation scrap. They got a new manager in at roughly the same time as us but moved very quickly in the transfer market, we apparently had our signings lined up all year but took an eternity to get them signed up, would Bilic have done any better here ?

Well I just wish our team would put the effort that Sunderland have done we might get somewhere on Saturday !

Before Bilic went to West Ham I actually thought he was pretty overrated to be honest ! ,Over the last 4 years West Ham have spent fortunes on their squad compared to ours and they have hardly sold any stars either!

I think West Ham overall have a much better squad than we have I think Bilic would struggle here as well with the current squad he needs pace and work rate which we dont have lots of !!

I don’t know if McC and Ashley can turn this around. It takes more than money though. You also need expertise to develop a winning culture, and you need luck. Whatever happens, Ashley’s first eight years can only be seen as a failure. It’s an incredible amount of time only to end up where we now find ourselves.

Graham Carr isn’t good enough. Makro and Costco aren’t good enough. The head coach set up isn’t good enough. That makes Lee Charnley not good enough. And as Ashley said, the buck stops with him. Which means he’s not good enough. I cannot see any way that this bunch of incompetents can turn this around. Not even with another £100m to spend. Not one of them fills me with any confidence.

League Placement

health update

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in February 2017 and completed four months of chemotherapy in late July and will continue to have hormone treatment.

The cancer spread in the bones but it has been stabilized and has not spread further.

I am still recovering from some of the side effects of the chemo treatment - it's mainly severe fatigue and exhaustion.

Stage 4 cancer is not curable so I will continue to have cat scans and bone scans every four months to ensure the cancer is not spreading.

It is as it is - these things happen - and I will do my very best under the circumstances.

Ed Harrison

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